Culinary Anxiety Quotes

The first time I ever deep-fried something, I was terrified. I was making yeasted jelly donuts, and I was so nervous that I fried them, unblinking, with a pounding heart and sweaty palms.

Throughout my time working in restaurants, I developed an illogical dread of some basic kitchen tasks. None of them - picking and chopping parsley, peeling and mincing garlic, browning pans of ground meat - were particularly difficult. But at the scale required in a professional kitchen, they felt Sisyphean.

One of the things I've found now, not just for television, but in the restaurant, is that you have many anxious chefs, who know how to cook twenty recipes really well, but they don't have a good foundation for other things.

I know it sounds funny, but every time I have a disaster in the kitchen, it knocks my confidence level a little bit more, and I feel annoyed with myself that I can't do better.

I know pastry chefs who are overwhelmed by the idea of tasting, rather than measuring, their way to a balanced vinaigrette.

People come up to me all the time and say, 'Oh, I love to watch Food Network,' and I ask them what they cook, and they say, 'I don't really cook.' They're afraid, they're intimidated, they know all about food from eating out and watching TV, but they don't know where to start in their own kitchen.

I have to say, sushi freaks me out more than almost anything.

I wish I had a little more joy of cooking - because mostly I have anxiety of cooking. I'm so proud when things come out well.

The hardest thing for a chef is to become comfortable with what you do. Not to be too neurotic and worried with what you are doing and how wrong or right you are.